Family members identified 88-year-old Dwight Ewing as the pilot of the plane. Ewing was a prominent businessman and real estate appraiser in Merced.
Ewing's daughter tells Action News -- her father was on an aerial appraisal when his plane crashed. No one on the ground was injured. The cause of the crash is under investigation.
A friend and colleague of Ewings said the pilot was a longtime Rotarian ... who chose to be active in the community.
Loren Gonella said, "He loved to fly. He loved to ride horses. He enjoyed his collection of Lincoln Continentals. So he was a very entertaining kind of figure. Very quick witted, spoke quite eloquently. I guess that's what happens when you go to Harvard and are educated in an Ivy League School."
Ewing also shared his love of flying with people around the world. In the sixties, he founded the International Cessna 195 Club, which now has more than eight-hundred members.
